@privatebanker "What someone is Missouri, or wherever, thinks about my school in PA ,or wherever, has a value approaching less than zero for me, personally. "
Isn’t this the point of the thread - highlighting schools that are hidden gems? The point I was making was some people may see a college as not being a hidden gem because it’s regionalyl well-known, but to those outside the region it would be a hidden gem. So Trinity U is not a hidden gem to those in Texas, but to those outside of Texas it would be a hidden gem. Obviously we don’t care what people in Missouri think about Trinity because we are sending our daughter there. Our son goes to American U which almost no one from the Midwest knows about either. If I say he goes to school in DC people are like oh Georgetown or maybe they know GW. On the East Coast American is a popular college choice. One of our friends was talking about how a coach from Richmond U had contacted his son about coming to play there and he was like my son can do so much better. I almost died because they obviously knew nothing about how hard it is to get into Richmond or what a good reputation the school has out East.